Monthly Archives: July 2014

It is finally done. My new novelette, Hermione’s Day Off, is available. It will be available in paperback on Amazon on the third of August 2014 (Monday), and probably before then. You can get the PDF file version here for free. You can also read more about the book here.

This science fiction book is a stand alone story, or read as a prequel to my Negative Zeronovel.

Attached is one of three beginnings to my Negative Zero novel, before we settled on the hypnotic birds.

This candidate that was later rejected told the story of young Tomek as a child, and introduced the death of his parents, a mystery that will arc through the series of all three planned books. However there was a worry the the time discontinuity between chapter 1 and chapter 2 would disorient readers. I still told Tomek’s childhood story in the novel, but as a series of flashbacks sprinkled throughout. The prologue here, setting up some indirect clues about why his parents were killed, never did get published.

By starting with the current chapter 1, we showed an introduction to what normalcy was for Tomek, before he got entangled in the complicated Cane-Lua plague mess that took over the plot. We thought the current chapter 1 would serve as a better hook, and help establish the base venue and situation to build on going forward.

I had been working on my sequel, but now I am taking time out to write a short story. A short story is from 1000 to 7500 words, so this is getting to be a ‘novelette’ instead. My plan is to make this ebook available for free. The story is somewhat related to my novel and to Tomek and was interesting to write. It still has a week to go I think, and another week if I get it edited, and another week if I try to get some custom book cover illustration.

The central character is a alien woman that has four legs, two arms and is furry all over. Like a cross between a centaur and a dog. Has anyone see any images like that I could use as a book cover?

The second edition of my paperback book Negative Zero is now available on Amazon.com. It’s the same story with new illustrations. Late next week the new kindle version will also be available. The iBooks version will be available hopefully this month. I am not clear how long Apple takes to process submissions.